Really interesting piece on the high rate of churn in our economy and how great companies survive long term. Most don’t however.

We have been studying companies that seem to be able to endure and adapt for longer periods of time, and have come to the conclusion that the extinction of once-great innovators is less often caused by technological or market evolution, and more often by self-inflicted wounds and slow cycles of decision and adaptation.

Unlike dinosaurs, which had no conscious way to adapt to rapid changes around them, companies and CEOs have a choice. They can focus and simplify their organizations. Or, as happens all too often, they can pursue complex strategies that beget complex organizations and complex processes until they grind to a halt like a Rube Goldberg machine.

It is this complexity, my colleague James Allen and I report in our new book Repeatability, that is the “silent killer of profitable growth,” and the greatest inhibitor of adaptability.

Repeatability was based on a three-year Bain & Company study of enduring profit and relative competitive ability to adapt in a world of increasing velocity and uncertainty.